620 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Observations on the Authorities. 



Several points in the matters touched upon in the foregoing 

 answers appear to call for observation, though I feel much 

 diffidence in venturing to criticize anything coming from 

 gentlemen of the standard of knowledge of my correspondents. 

 Certain obscurities and apparent differences are, however, 

 in a large measure capable of being explained and reconciled. 



1. The Hei-tiki : its Significance. 



White's derivation is overruled by all other authorities. 

 Hei is a neck-ornament. This name is given to me by com- 

 petent Maori scholars to represent several forms of bone 

 ornaments hung from a string round the neck. Tiki is the 

 name given to the large carved figures on the gables of houses 

 or set up near houses. This, then, is a small copy — a neck-tiki. 

 The tiki represents, and the word is derived from, the name of 

 the god Tiki. He is sometimes spoken of as the progenitor of 

 mankind, and enters into numerous mythical tales. Accord- 

 ing to some authorities there were several gods Tiki. It seems 

 certain that these objects were not gods or idols, nor were 

 they in any way worshipped. Messrs. White, Stack, Short- 

 land (second paper), and Wohlers, beside other authorities, 

 are substantially in agreement as' to their true import. 

 Though Dr. Savage, who visited New Zealand in 1806, 

 thought they were protecting deities, for some unexplained 

 reason he uses the expression " the man in the moon " in 

 describing them. 



Mr. Wohlers's account of the hei-tiki offers in all probability 

 the true solution of the apparently conflicting views. They 

 were not portraits of ancestors, but they were, as Mr. Stack 

 says, mementoes of ancestors. They became sacred and ever 

 more sacred from the touch of the sacred dead, and so became 

 indissolubly connected with the memoi'y of ancestors. Why 

 they were named after Tiki, or Adam, is a matter now lost in 

 the mist of time. The old missionaries, who had an ignorant 

 aversion for everything connected with heathen worship, had 

 none for this object or its uses. The Eev. William Tate, who 

 lived in New Zealand in 1828-35, says that the idea that it 

 was connected with superstitions arose from the fact that the 

 hei-tiki was taken off the neck, laid down on a tuft of grass or 

 a clean leaf in the presence of a few friends meeting together, 

 and then wept and sung over, in order to bring more vividly to 

 the recollection of those present the person recently slain, 

 whose body they will never see again, to whom the hei-tiki 

 belonged. In this way it is used as a remembrance of all 

 those who have worn it, and is called by the name of the indi- 

 vidual whom it for the moment represents. It is wept over 



